Tag Archives: Professor Wayne Hall

To live a spiritual life requires one to be dedicated to reality, to the truth, to honesty in all things ~ as long as our honesty does not harm the innocent. Without searing self awareness it is difficult to progress beyond mere lip service to the concept of spirituality ~ self-deception and denial trap us in mere existence as opposed to really living the good life. Drug abuse, be it prescription drugs, cannabis, cocaine, heroin, alcohol, or whatever your personal poison is, relies on self deception and denial.

Cannabis / marijuana / hemp users have long said that the weed is safe, non addictive, has no bad side effects ~ in fact many cannabis users have stated that the weed is much safer than alcohol. Pro-cannabis campaigners like to say that cannabis is essentially harmless, therefore the drug should be decriminalised in the UK.

A study by Professor Wayne Hall for the World Health Organisation utterly refutes the liberal mantra that cannabis is safe. His analysis shows that the active ingredient in the drug triggers anxiety, depression, depersonalisation, and psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, causes memory lapses and false memory syndrome, inhibits brain development in younger people, increases the risk of cancers and cardiovascular disease, and the weed is indeed highly addictive, as addictive as heroin.

woman smoking marijuana ~ shocking manicure

Like most drug abuse, including alcohol abuse, cannabis wrecks lives, breaks up relationships, causes the destruction of the family, creates crime, violence and unemployment. The pro-cannabis lobby resort to propaganda, personal attacks, deception and lies to make their point that cannabis is harmless. It isn’t. The pro-cannabis lobby is backed by many celebrities, although I am unsure if the ubiquitous Hugh Grant is one of them. The Liberal Democrats, a fringe UK political party certainly back the legalisation of cannabis for personal use. This is self deception writ large.

Most cannabis users start smoking the weed in their early teens, a part of life when the brain is still developing. Usually the human brain does not complete its development until the early twenties ~ cannabis use causes irreversible brain damage in the young. This results in a lower IQ, which makes school or college difficult. Users often drop out of education, can’t find a job, become distant from family and old friends, and become dependent on cannabis, welfare payments, and crime. Cannabis use increases the risk of suicide, road traffic accidents, accidents in the home, and homelessness.

Trust me on this one, giving up any drug is difficult beyond belief. Giving up cannabis is little different to giving up alcohol, cocaine or heroin. You have to have suffered serious withdrawal to know the nightmarish mental and physical hell quitting an addictive drug can cause. Giant spiders climbing up the wall are the least of it. Some people die during withdrawal, and that kind of death isn’t pretty.

Whether you sniff it, smoke it, or shove it up your ass, the result is the same: addiction. ~ William S Burroughs

William Seward Burroughs II, (nome de plume William Lee). Novelist, short story writer, essayist, painter.

I refuse to believe that the supporters of the legalisation of cannabis are not aware of all this. I believe they are aware but consider themselves immune, possibly just because they are part of the urban elite and read the Guardian newspaper. Of all the politicians, the Liberal Democrats disgust me most on this issue. They are right at the heart of the liberal urban elite, like to be seen as cool and ultra modern, and believe that the ‘war on drugs’ is lost anyway. In my view they are pathetic, irrelevant to 95% of the population of these islands, and caught in utter denial about their entire ethos.

marijuana, the active molecule

The active, mind altering, ingredient of cannabis is tetrahydrocannabinol, (THC). The human brain contains receptors that THC fits like a key fits the right lock. These receptors are concentrated in areas of the brain that handle; coordination, cognition, memory, pleasure and the sense of time. THC causes the brain to release dopamine, the pleasure hormone. THC also causes hallucinations and delusions. There are more than 400 different cannabinoids, one found in cannabis is tetrahydrocannabivarin, (THCV), along with sundry other chemical compounds required to produce a psychoactive response to THC. No person alive can achieve real spirituality with all that shit going on.

Most cannabinoids are soluble in fat, which means that it takes a long time for the THC to clear the body and brain. Heavy cannabis users will produce a positive result in drug tests for up to 90 days after last taking the drug.

Luckily, THC is not particularly toxic, one is unlikely to die as a direct result of taking cannabis. But, all of the nasty illnesses one can get from smoking tobacco, one can get in spades from smoking cannabis. In particular cannabis smoke contains quite high concentrations of; ammonia, hydrogen cyanide and nitrogen oxides, as well as tar, more than 50 known carcinogens, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons ~ (cannabis smoke stinks).

The effects of cannabis hit the body within seconds if the weed is smoked, and usually last for 60 to 180 minutes, but can hang around for eight hours or more. If you bake the stuff in cookies it is likely to be a half-hour before one gets a high. The more often one uses cannabis, the more cannabis is required in order to obtain that high.

The best effects of cannabis are; a feeling of well-being or euphoria, a feeling of relaxation, increased appreciation of the beauty in all things, (art, music, humour), increased awareness of sensation / increased sensuality, increased libido, increased creativity, increased joviality, metacognition and introspection. In short, the users connection to reality becomes tenuous.